This weekend we headed to Manchester to spend the day at Festa Italiana Manchester – a free, weekend-long celebration of all things Italian.

I must admit that I expected a handful of food stalls and one of those little prosecco wagons.

Actually, Manchester’s Italian community had transformed Cathedral Gardens into ‘Little Italy’ creating a city centre oasis of la dolce vita.

We approached the festa to the sounds of a swing band on stage “You Wanna Be Americano”. The sun was hot and crowds gathered to drink spritz and eat street food.

The big brands with promotions – Aperol and Peroni – had a roaring trade. While the queues lingered we found a smaller bar in the corner where we were served with larger (£5) and prosecco (£6) quickly.  We sampled several of those, along with drinks from the Melabrea, Limoncello and Aperol stands.

And then there was the food……